Introduction
As a result of technology and its progress, transport has become easier and faster. This means more and more people live away from where they were born. In some cases this means, in a different country or continent.
To adapt to the new environment, language becomes very important. Although challenging many people are now bilingual or multilingual.
This page is the first part of a study of articles.
Beyond Bilingualism: multilingual experience correlates with caudate volume By Alexis Hervais-Adelman, Natalia Egorova, Narly Golestani
2nd language acquisition and bilingualism at an early age and the impact on early cognitive development by ELLEN BIALYSTOK
Cognitive advantages and disadvantages in early and late bilinguals by Sabra D. Pelham and Lise Abrams
Context
Multilingual’s may be able to speak several languages. However, this means their brains have to :
- Select the proper set of sounds, words and meanings
- Inhibit the others sets
This additional processing required means they are usually slower in generating words.
This was measured using picture naming tasks and verbal fluency tasks.
Verbal fluency task
A test that requires the participants to say as many words that belong to a given category in 60 seconds.
This deficit in generating words can also lead to TOT phenomenons which have been found to happen more in bilinguals than monolinguals.
TOT phenomenon
Tip of the tongue phenomenon
When a known word/name doesn’t come out for a short time
In young children
These problems are faced on a day to day basis.
Other issues with multilingualism also exist in a developmental way.
Most obviously, when children aren’t fluent or very proficient in a language, learning or socialising with it is going to be a difficult task.
Another is vocabulary.
Bilinguals generally have a slightly smaller vocabulary in each language compared to a monolingual.
All of these “issues” are found in lab settings. However, there are individual differences and they aren’t always felt.
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